Working together

The president’s bodyguardsThis exercise involves rhythm and coordination. The participants are divided into groups of five: one is the president, and stands in the middle. One bodyguard stands in front of him; one behind him, and one on each side with their bodies facing the same direction as him. The president makes a rhythmical movement and sound, and the bodyguards imitate this. The one in front moves like a mirror image, while the others repeat the action the same way as the president. The president walks around the room in this way, and when making turns, the bodyguard now facing the president become the mirror. The joker can, from time to time, elect a new president, so everyone gets a chance to lead. (Boal 2002:104).

SculptureIn this exercise, participants are divided into groups (of four or five). One person is the sculptor and s/he fashions the bodies of the group into one significant image of what s/he is thinking. The images might have a theme (e.g. injustice). When the sculptor is done showing their thoughts , she takes the place of one of the people in the sculpture, and that person now becomes the sculptor and has the opportunity to show their thoughts by altering the sculpture into a new image, and so on until everyone has had a chance to display their visual opinion on the theme. (Boal 2002:138).

Vocation and toolThe Joker writes down on slips of papers different kind of vocations (baker, doctor, shopkeeper, teacher, veterinarian, dentist, police officer, taxi driver, etc.)Next she writes down different kinds of “tools or instruments” (dough, stethoscope, cash machine, book, cat, tooth, police car/jail, car/wheel).Half of the group picks up vocation paper and half of the group picks up tool papers. The task is to find pairs by miming a vocation or tool. Examples of pairs are baker and dough; doctor and stethoscope; shopkeeper and cash machine…This sounds quite difficult but it is actually very funny if you have quite difficult words (how can you act stethoscope or jail or tooth…?).